Free Republic

IRVINE, Calif. — On the morning of Feb. 28, 2000, a man in a black hood ran up to Patrick Riley in front of his office, shot him flush in the face and fled. The bullet missed his brain, and Mr. Riley, a biotechnology entrepreneur, survived. But two days later, his business partner, a doctor named Larry C. Ford, killed himself with a shotgun after learning he was suspected of being the mastermind behind the shooting. That is where the story probably would have ended — a lurid but ultimately local piece of intrigue played out in the sun-splashed Orange...

New York - TIME has obtained the first documented look inside the highly classified realm of military interrogations since the Gitmo Camp at Guantanamo Bay opened. The document is a secret 84-page interrogation log that details the interrogation of 'Detainee 063' at Guantanamo Bay. It is a remarkable look into the range of techniques and methods used for the interrogation of Mohammed al Qahtani, who is widely believed to be the so-called 20th hijacker, a compatriof Osama bin Laden and a man who had tried to enter the U.S. in August 2001 to take part in the Sept. 11 attacks....

I refer to the letter US treating Muslims shoddily. First of all, the Sept 11 hijackers were not Hindus, Christians, Buddhists, or anyone else for that matter. They were Muslims. Three thousand Americans of all faiths were slaughtered. So can you blame the Americans for treating Muslims they way they do? The Americans know that textbooks in some Islamic countries demonise the West. For example, in Saudi Arabia, Saudi schoolchildren are being taught to disparage Christianity and Judaism in a textbook issued by their education ministry. There is no other country on earth where freedom of religion is not just...

A UN photo from a different date. UN solemnly marks International Day of Solidarity with Palestinian People29 November – The United Nations today solemnly marked the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People amid widespread calls for efforts to achieve a two-State solution to the Middle East conflict. “This Day of Solidarity is a day of mourning and a day of grief,” Secretary-General Kofi Annan told a commemorative meeting in a message delivered on his behalf by Chef de Cabinet S. Iqbal Riza. Deploring the situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, he noted that the human and material...

A British aid worker was killed Friday in a U.N. compound in the West Bank during a gunbattle between Israeli troops and Palestinian gunmen — the first senior U.N. official to die in over two years of fighting. The United Nations accused Israeli soldiers of preventing an ambulance from immediately reaching Iain Hook, a senior manager for UNRWA, the U.N. agency that helps Palestinian refugees. The Israeli army said he was evacuated from the U.N. compound in the Jenin refugee camp as soon as possible. The death occurred hours after Israel reoccupied the West Bank town of Bethlehem for the...

Lebanese authorities have arrested a Palestinian man working for the UN Relief and Works Agency for allegedly trying to smuggle medicine destined for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, Palestinian officials said Saturday. Hani Khalil, a chief auditor at UNRWA’s Lebanon office, was arrested along with his driver by police at the Lebanese-Syrian border three days ago while attempting to smuggle medicine to Syria, officials at the Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp said. The Palestinian officials said the medicine, whose quantity and value were not known, was confiscated by Lebanese customs officers at the border. UNRWA chief Peter Hansen, who has been informed...

<p>SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Nine Army linguists, including six trained to speak Arabic, have been dismissed from the military because they are gay.</p> <p>The soldiers' dismissals come at a time the military is facing a critical shortage of translators and interpreters for the war on terrorism.</p>

NIGERGATE THE TRUTH: HOW THE FRENCH TRICKED THE USA “I was employed by the French since 1996. I handed the false documents on the uranium trade between the Africa and Iraq to them” –-- With this startling declaration Rocco Martino, the freelance spy at the centre of the false Niger dossier, has confirmed that France was responsible for some of the information later used by Britain and the United States to promote the case for war with Iraq. Before examining Martino’s deposition it’s worth taking a look at some of the details regarding France contained in the Senate Select Committee...

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Malaysia has extended for two more years the imprisonment of a terror suspect linked to al-Qaeda's attempts to produce chemical and biological weapons, saying he has more information about terrorist operations. Yazid Sufaat, a U.S.-trained biochemist and former Malaysian army captain, was arrested in late 2001 as he returned home from Afghanistan, where officials say he was working on a biological and chemical weapons program for al-Qaeda that was ended by the U.S.-led war. Since then, he has been held without trial under Malaysia's Internal Security Act on accusations of being a member of Jemaah...

When U.S. authorities got their hands on terrorist Mohammed Mansour Jabarah in May 2002, he agreed to inform on some of the most influential al-Qaeda leaders. So instead of being sent to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, or a high-security CIA detention facility, Jabarah was housed with relatively lax security at Fort Dix, N.J., where he was allowed to watch television and movies, speak to his family in Canada by telephone, go for walks and even make his own meals, all under 24-hour FBI watch. That arrangement soon proved to be a major problem for the bureau. In court papers filed in...

<p>Washington, Nov. 6 (Bloomberg) -- William Webster, picked less than two weeks ago to head the newly created accounting oversight board, may resign within days, a person familiar with the situation said.</p> <p>SEC Chairman Harvey Pitt quit yesterday amid four federal investigations into how he chose Webster to lead the oversight board even though he knew the former FBI chief had been chairman of the audit committee of an Internet company accused of fraud.</p>

Document ISGQ-2003-0044 ISGQ-2003-00044390 390 contains a November/27/2002 Top Secret and Urgent memo from the Baath Party Command in Fallujah and in relation to another letter from the office of the Presidential Secretariat (Saddam Hussein Personal Secretary) and it is addressed to all the People Commands in the Anbar Province (The Western Desert) asking them to watch for Americans or Zionists (Israelis) forces that can potentially bury prohibited materials, WMD, in the Anbar province so it will frame Iraq and find an excuse to punish Iraq according to the memo. The Anbar province which is the hot bed of the terrorists...

BANJUL, Gambia: Authorities in the West African nation of Gambia have arrested two people in a suspected plot against the US ambassador there, a US State Department official has said. The plot concerned "a possible threat" to Ambassador Jackson McDonald, the State Department official said in Washington, speaking on condition of anonymity. Neither the US embassy officials in the capital, Banjul, nor Gambian military or government officials could immediately be reached for comment. News of Thursday's arrests emerged only late on Sunday. US authorities gave no details. Gambia, a former British colony that won independence in 1965, is a predominantly...

<p>November 2, 2002 -- Remember those hysterical charges early this year claiming that America was "torturing" and otherwise violating the human rights of Taliban and al Qaeda detainees at Camp X-Ray?</p> <p>Well, four of those prisoners have now been released, and you can hear the truth about America's "brutality" straight from the horse's mouth.</p>

Two people have been charged with breaking into a naval base where seven nuclear submarines are based. The pair were found inside Devonport Naval Base, Plymouth, at about 1130GMT on Friday. A Ministry of Defence spokeswoman said Petter Joelson from Sweden and Elisa Silvennoinen from Finland had been remanded in custody to appear before Plymouth magistrates on Monday. They were arrested at 9 Dock, where the Trident submarine HMS Vanguard is currently undergoing a re-fit. Intruders got onto the casing of the submarine. In a statement anti-nuclear campaigners alleged the couple had got onto the submarine and rung its bell....

Mysterious tear gas canister sickens 43 in city By KIRK SWAUGER and PETE BOSAK, the tribune-democrat November 20, 2002 In violence called domestic terrorism by authorities, a canister of highly potent riot gas was detonated in a busy Johnstown neighborhood yesterday, sending 43 passers-by to hospitals. None of the patients was seriously injured by the gas, which is only available to the military or large police departments. An unnamed victim was admitted to nearby Memorial Medical Center for observation. All others were treated and later released from local hospitals. Symptoms ranged from tightness in the chest and tearing and burning...

Three giant cargo ships are being tracked by US and British intelligence on suspicion that they might be carrying Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Each with a deadweight of 35,000 to 40,000 tonnes, the ships have been sailing around the world's oceans for the past three months while maintaining radio silence in clear violation of international maritime law, say authoritative shipping industry sources. The vessels left port in late November, just a few days after UN weapons inspectors led by Hans Blix began their search for the alleged Iraqi arsenal on their return to the country. Uncovering such a deadly...

<p>BASRA, Iraq (AP) - Ali Hassan al-Majid, dubbed ``Chemical Ali'' by opponents of the Iraqi regime for ordering a poison gas attack that killed thousands of Kurds, has been found dead, a British officer said Monday.</p> <p>Maj. Andrew Jackson of the 3rd Battalion Parachute Regiment told The Associated Press that his superiors had confirmed the death of the man who is also President Saddam Hussein's first cousin.</p> <p>Jackson said the body was found along with that of his bodyguard and the head of Iraqi intelligence services in Basra.</p>

NEWARK, New Jersey - An American Jew was among three suspects nabbed for allegedly attempting to smuggle a missile to terror groups operating inside the United States in order to down commercial aircraft. But the smuggling attempt was in fact a sting operation orchestrated over the past 18 months by U.S., Russian and British authorities. Terrorism-related charges were leveled on Wednesday against a British arms dealer who praised Osama bin Laden and thought he was smuggling into the United States missiles, federal prosecutors announced. Two other suspected accomplices to the plot, inlcuding Yehuda Abraham, who is Jewish, face conspiracy charges,...

Anthony Pellicano, the high-profile private investigator whose clients included some of the biggest stars in Hollywood, was charged today with conspiracy and making threats against a Los Angeles Times reporter. Anita Busch was researching a story in 2002 about the relationship between actor Steven Seagal and a reputed Mafia figure when someone fired a bullet through the windshield of her unoccupied car. Left on top of the vehicle was a dead fish with a rose in its mouth and a sign reading: "Stop." The charges today were filed by Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley after a lengthy investigation...